Linux

28.7    Incremental Backups (rdiff-backup)

An interesting alternative to rsync is the rdiff-backup command. The most important difference from rsync is that when files are changed, rdiff-backup also archives the old version in the backup directory. To save space, instead of saving a copy of the file in question, only the changes can be saved, optionally in compressed form. rdiff-backup thus provides an incremental backup without much effort, from which you can also restore older versions of a file. Basically, rdiff-backup provides the same functions as Apple's Time Machine on macOS—only without a spectacular user interface.

In its simplest form, you apply rdiff-backup to two local directories. If the repository directory doesn't exist yet, it ...